Tag Archives: social improvement

Path right now as I see it, is crossbreed between Facebook and twitter.The interactive check-ins & uploads of Facebook feature combine with the timeline based updates of Twitter, makes Path as I see it a mangle of both social platform. It is nonetheless an interesting social platform itself in its own right which serves to select group of people. It is also in a way more private and restrictive in its sharing features which limits up to now about 150 users/friends. Thus, in a way it has elements of Google+ circles features as well.

Though, I’m still finding hard to switch away from Twitter as my de facto random and in the spur moments tweets/moments, social services like Path,Google+, Gowalla needs to find new niche instead of copying features from the established ones such as the two main juggernaut which Facebook and Twitter. A worthwhile mention of a new social platform is Instagram. This platform combines the love of taking photographs and social sharing into one and makes them accessible with anyone with an iPhone and Android(A version is reportedly launching soon). This is the type of social platform I meant are which are not original but with features which are socially interesting and easy to use.
Instagram, makes use of interesting filters which hipster(users of Instagram are known as) finds easy to use and thereafter share with friends. Facebook in this aspect failed to recognise, this simple application of filters features in their Facebook apps. Hence, Instagram was able to capitalise on this. Another social platform I would like to strongly give a mention as well is Lightbox for Android. This app has been my most used camera app on my Android phone simply because Instagram has been slow to release an Android version.

With that say, Social Apps and contents needs to diversify and find a meaningful way to socialise and connect with users. Even with this trend and explosion of social connectivity and apps everywhere, there is still loads more of social improvement and features which has yet to be untapped. For example, Social music has not been successful or exploded in the social arena. Apps such as Spotify, Apple’s Ping and Google’s Music has tried to explore this but in my opinion all have failed. For example, Google’s Music, free 30s introduction of music to a circle of friends on Google+, was an exciting feature that helped somewhat to propel music into social sharing. But somehow it has not picked up amongst users. This is simply because Google+ still has attracted a large user base into their platform. They need to work hard to gain popularity and users for such features to be novelty and gain mainstream usage.

Another arena which has potential untapped resource is the video sharing features. Youtube with its enormous based of videos and users can tap into this resource and gain more usage and popularity. The Youtube app on most phones, are basically video search and play app. It is missing a social feature for it to be really a Social chain explosion. Maybe as a suggestion, a real-time timeline updates just as in Twitter could bring more discovery to interesting videos being posted.

With that, I foresee the future of Internet profiles and users, gaining more social features in websites, weblogs, webshops and search(Google+ in Google search). Interesting days for social junkies but scary days for socially-shy users.